Men and Monsters
by t-me
Summary: Directly after Dark Knight Rises two people have a chance to talk. Which means spoilers people


As always: don't own a thing.

I'm not 100% happy with this. It's too wordy or just missing or something but I don't know what to change to make it better.

Oh well. Here it is anyway.

And for a free rhetorical question: Why do I want to read more fic with these two when they _never even met in the film_?

I don't think I could get behind them as a paring, though, unless it was crack or AU. It's too dubcon.

* * *

After five months of impotency the government rushed in to provide aid almost as soon as the bomb detonated over the bay. For many this was too little too late but they did manage to get emergency services up and running quickly. Now, in Gotham General, it was like nothing had happened. The hospital was once again bustling with activity, even at night.  
But not this room.  
Strapped down with restraints and medical equipment the hulking figure that had terrorised the city still gave off an intimidating aura. Even the doctors and guards assigned to the mercenary did not wish to stay in the same room as his. The place here was as silent as the grave.

Then the villain spoke.  
"You needn't stand so far away. After all, what could I do?"

John Blake stepped out of the shadows.  
"I've read your files" including one found in a cave behind a waterfall. One that couldn't possibly have been written before batman rode out on a bomb.  
"If you wanted to do something I doubt a handful of holes in your chest is going to stop you."

A dark chuckle rolled around the room before cutting off sharply.  
"In pain?" Blake asked.

"These drug your doctors have filled me with are … less then effective."

"Well, supplies are still a little short."

"And I am not a priority."

"No."

There was silence for a while.

"Are you here to ask me why?"

"I thought so. But … what I really want to know is what you honestly thought would happen. Afterwards."

"Nothing."

Blake stayed silent.

"You are not surprised."

"I guess I'm not. Like I said, I read your files. You planned things, you lead an army. You thought ahead by _years_. You must have realised blowing up a city wasn't really going to accomplish anything in the long run. The idea was insane. And I don't for a minute think you believed all that nonsense you were spouting." He paused, marshalling his thoughts "I guess I am asking why after all"

"She wanted Gotham to burn. So I gave it to her."

"Talia? She's dead you know."

Bane closed his eyes. "I suspected. She would have never failed if she lived."

The silence stretched. The only sound harsh breathing and the beeps of medical equipment.

"She died thinking she won."

For the first time the masked criminal looked directly at the former detective.

"Why tell me this?"

Blake just shrugged. Bane just looked for a long moment.

"I remember you. I saw you once, with the chalk. Marking out the symbol of the bat. Giving others hope."

"Why didn't you stop me?"

"Because I knew that hope would break you."

"But it didn't."

"No. It did not."

He looked back at the ceiling, quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again it was harsh and unexpected.

"I never knew my mother. I can't remember much of my life before the pit. I don't remember her name, her face, her voice. I regret that. I don't remember my farther either but for one fact. _He_ was the one who threw me to the jackals to save his own skin. So I could take his place. I do not know what type of person I was in my youth but I do not believe I deserved that hell.

I am a monster. I have done terrible things. I crawled out of the darkness by doing every horror a mind can conceive. I fought upward in hope of the light. I climbed over the bodies of my fellow inmates for it. I tore down any who stood in my way.

And when I finally reached it I realised what a lie the light was. I fought my way to where the most powerful in that prison lived. The strongest, the smartest, the most cunning and it was for nothing. What use was my power? I was still at the bottom of a hole, rotting away.

It broke me, as it breaks all men.

But one day, in the cell next to mine, there was came the one cry those stone wall had never heard. The cry of a newborn child.

Can you imagine it? A place where screams of pain and death were so common. And a child was born there. I saw her take her first breath. A piece of innocence I never knew, that I forgot existed. I knew then I would do anything to protect that.

And I did.

Even when I was torn apart, even when every breath was agony, it was worth it. Because she escaped.

The only good thing I have ever done. It was worth it."

His voice was weaker now, starting to fade.

"And then she came back for me.

Whatever I did, what could it compare to that?

I would have given her the world but all she asked for was this city."

His voice was a whisper now.

"What else could I do?"

Blake watched and thought.

He thought of five months of running and hiding and fighting. Of dodging armed patrols and roving gangs. Of desperation, anger and death. He thought of enduring it for a liftime, of inflicting it on others. Of having only one good thing to his name and losing that too. Of dying slowly in a city that despised you and know you deserved it.  
He thought on how angry he was about every thing that happen and how the one responsible was in front of him.  
He walked over to the monitors and switched them off, tossing something on the bad as he worked on the restraints.

Bane picked up his mask.

"Why?"

"Come with me."

Putting on his lifeline Bane got out of the bad. Once more he was strong and pain free but he knew how much of an illusion that was. He could easily kill the man in front of him but would not change his fate. He was dying, his light was gone and he had nothing.  
And the man had yet to answer his question.

They left the room.

"No guards?" Bane asked, his voice once more distorted but strong.

"They owed me one, but they're not far."

They walked the rest of the down corridor in silence; each lost in their own thoughts, nether quite sure what would happen next. Eventually they arrived at a window. The maternity ward.

Bane reached out and touched the glass, looking at a room full of innocence as Blake stood up beside him.

"They would have all been killed in the blast."

"I told you I was a monster."

A cry rang out and Bane stepped back, eyes never leaving the window. A nurse rushed in not even noticing the two looking on. Ignoring everything but her task to help the screaming child.

"Why?" Bane asked Blake again.

"I hate you. You tried to destroy everything I hold dear. You tortured an entire city that did nothing to you. And you deserve to die.  
But I _refuse_ to become a person who acts on hate.  
And nothing I could do is worse then what's already happened to you. You've lost everything and you're dying. I've read your charts, it won't be long now.  
I don't know if I'm showing you this to be cruel or kind. But this is what I fight for and you'll never see it again."

There was silence again as the nurse finally calmed the baby and, still not having noticed being watched, slipped out of the room.  
Eyes still not leaving the window, voice laboured, Bane spoke at last.

"I heard the Batman is dead."

Both men ignored the blood now collecting by their feet.

"Bruce Wayne is dead. But the thing about Batman is there could be anyone under that mask."

Bane looked at Blake's reflection in the window.

"Good"

Blake noticed the crinkles around the corner of his eyes, everything else covered by his mask, he was smiling.  
Even as he sank to the floor, blood pooling around his, his eyes never changed looking beyond the window.

The silence of the night wasn't broken again as Blake stood by and watched a man die.


End file.
